Now two popular apparatus for online weighing are electronic belt scale and nuclear belt scale.
The common ground of the two apparatus lies in that both of them measure the load of materials on a conveyor belt and the speed of the belt, then get an instantaneous flux through multiplying the load by the speed, and finally obtain the cumulative weight of the material within a period of time through an integral or a summation operation.
The difference of these two apparatus lies in:
The electronic belt scale performs a contacting measurement by means of a pressure sensor, and determines the material load by measuring the weight of the material in a given area of the belt with a given length. If the flux is big, the accuracy of the electronic belt scale is high. But while the speed of the belt's movement is relatively high, the accuracy will decrease obviously. The electronic belt scale always has a huge size and a complicated structure, especially the one with better accuracy. And as it employs the contacting style measurement, the varieties of many factors can make great effect on measurement accuracy, such as change in tension of the belt, change in hardness of the belt and movement deviation of the belt. Therefore electronic belt scales need elaborate maintenance to keep steady accuracy.
The nuclear belt scale performs a non-contacting measurement, determining the material load by measuring the radiation absorption of the material. Nuclear belt scale has many features, such as, small volume, less maintenance and good stability. But under a condition of big flux and high load, due to the power limitation of a radioactive source, the intensity of the radiation having passed through the material and received by a detector is too low, which will influence the accuracy. Additionally, the changes in characteristics of the material, such as, the variety, composition, amount of water included and the change in the shape of a cross-section on the belt may influence the measurement accuracy. Therefore, nuclear belt scale has a low accuracy in general. And a complicated calibration needs to be done to ensure that the nuclear belt scale works well.
Although the nuclear belt scale and the electronic belt scale have their own advantages and disadvantages, they both can not meet the requirements of high precision and high reliability in some industries, such as metallurgy industry, chemical industry, and mining industry. It is an urgent affair to seek an online weighing apparatus with high precision, high stability, easy operation, and easy maintenance.